I
hadn't really been thinking about it until the end of term, when
suddenly everyone was going home for the holidays and I wasn't. That
was when I realized I was thinking of my Lonely Christmas almost as a
rite of passage: as something necessary, something I had to do.
Partly
it's because my older brother spent Christmas away from the family
two years ago – the first time we weren't all together – and so
it seemed natural to follow in his steps.
Partly
it's because I have some friends who are quite open about how much
they hate Christmas – how tense and miserable it is to bring
unhappy families together under the immense pressure of knowing it's
supposed to be The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year – and I've
always wondered how it feels to be unhappy on Christmas.
And
I think there's a theological reason too. I think that, as everything
I learn about God convinces me more that God stands with the poor,
the outcast, the lonely, the oppressed, it just doesn't seem right
to mark God's coming into the
world by being all warm and happy with my family.
Christmas
isn't supposed to be
warm and fuzzy.
The
first 22 Christmases of my life couldn't have been warmer or fuzzier.
I gathered with my parents and brothers, ate and drank gluttonously,
tore open an abundance of presents (none of which, casting my mind
back, I can even remember), and sang about the little Lord Jesus
asleep on the hay.
On
my 23rd
Christmas, I actually thought seriously about the little Lord Jesus.
Like
most people with a Classics degree, I am unconvinced by the nativity
narratives of Matthew and Luke. They're riddled with historical
implausibilities, and are probably somewhat tortured back-formations
designed to make Jesus fulfill the messianic prophecies of the Hebrew
Scriptures as translated into the Septuagint. The Christmas story is
not convincing as historical truth (which is not to say it must
be historically false, just that
it probably is); but
as aesthetic truth, as theological truth, it shines a great light in
the darkness.
Read
as a narrative affirming God's presence, God's total identification,
with the poor and the outcast, the Christmas story is a purveyor of
profound theological truth.
God
in the form of a newborn baby: God is with the helpless.
God
born in a stable, laid in a manger: God is with the homeless.
God
born in an occupied territory of a mighty empire: God is with the
oppressed.
God
on the run from a murderous tyrant: God is with the refugee.
Compared
to the suffering of most people in this world, my Lonely Christmas
was hardly lonely. I have a family that loves and misses me, though
it is 5000 miles away. I have friends who welcomed me into their
home. I have more friends who let me know they were thinking of me.
But
I am still a stranger in a strange land, and in that small way I feel
an abiding kinship with the God who took on human form, with its
weaknesses and sorrows and limitations, in order to bring the
constant and unfailing word of hope to me and to all humankind: you
are not alone.
This year was pretty good to me. I was a little ill on Christmas, so I sat in bed and wrote fan fiction - and I worked because I'd agreed to work to free up other people (I clean up after horses, they take no holidays). Also means I know about barns and stables so I can relate to that part of the Christmas story...
ReplyDeleteFor the last six years, it's just been me and Bob. None of the big family stuff I grew up with. That's okay. And, well, I can't console the lonely because I have Bob.
I can tell you about Christmas 2009 for me, though. That was Hell. The whole end of that year was Hell for us. In late November, Bob lost the job he'd held because the company he worked for folded under and the CEOs basically took the money and ran. He didn't get paid for his last three weeks of work. Seriously. (Cue lawsuit by the employees of the company franchise-wide that lasted a year to get their wages)...
Because we couldn't pay our rent, our screeching harpy of a landlady decided to evict (at the holidays, no less). We spent part of Novemember and all of December focused on pure surival - finding an apartment without credit-check that would be able to take us right away. I was stressing out so much I saw my doctor about meds to calm me down because I seriously thought I was going to give myself an anyersum from stress.
We found a place and spent Christmas Eve (along with Bob's nephew, who helped) hauling furniture up stairs. We took Christmas off, the nephew had to go see other family, and the next two days were a quick scramble to get everything we needed out of the old house because the landlady was going to own it if we didn't get it out right on time.
Then, on the 28th, coming down the stairs at the hayloft at work, I slipped on a step, tumbled down onto the concrete floor, breaking my arm and messing up a kidney. I spent the first days of the new year 2010 in the hospital.
Yeah, the "holiday season" of 2009 tried to kill me, literally.
So, there's my sob story for misery that longs for company.
As for this year, I've got a new videogame and I've gotta go fight some zombie pirates now.
It's really weird how people turn the nativity into a nice, clean story. I went to my mom's church on the 24th and watched kids put on a Christmas pageant. The kids were having fun so I tried to just be happy for them, but I couldn't stop thinking this was weird as hell. And, a side note, I guess I don't find little kids pretending to be pregnant as laugh out loud hysterical as most adults do.
ReplyDelete